When Corruption Takes Hold
by Knight Thunder
Summary: !ABANDONED! Pippin tries to recall the memory of the Palantír. But Sauron, who was not altogether destroyed, only thrown into the void, feels it, and starts to corrupt the hobbit.
1. Chapter 1

The Thain and his wife had cried or happiness when their son, who they thought dead, returned after a year. Peregrin Took told them, with little detail of darker days, of what happened on the journey, yet Eglantine hid that she thought it was not all that she wanted to know. It takes her a while until she decides that she has to be confided with the information.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was a year after Frodo Baggins had left to the West, and Pippin was 32 years old, turning an adult the following year. He hadn't changed much, let alone realising danger quicker, but even if only a very little bit, some of his cheerful, carefree self disappeared too.

It was a usual Thursday evening, around nine o'clock. Pippin was staying at the Smials for a few weeks. Eglantine heard him enter the kitchen, she looked around and her son stood there, looking a little tired.

"Peregrin," she said kindly, "are you hungry?"

"Well, I already ate, but, sure, why not?" he replied with a small grin.

His mother smiled, taking out some reasonably fresh scones from a cupboard. Pippin took two and started nibbling on one of them.

Eglantine hesitated a little, unsure if she should disturb him, as she was watching him eat. "Peregrin, I'd like to know, with full detail, of your journey of a year," she paused a little, listening if he was going to interrupt, but she did not look at him. "I just feel like I need to know, I felt you did not reveal all that you could."

Pippin had stopped eating, and was staring at the table. He started to bite at his lower lip, and then stopped. He shook his head a little, and went back to eating.

"Pippin, please," Eglantine pleaded.

Pippin put down his scone. "Why?"

"WHY? What sort of question is that?" she cried. "A mother needs to know what happened to their child, after you were not an adult, and you still are not! You may not see why it is of such importance to me, but if you will have children once, you'll understand!"

Pippin looked into Eglantine's eyes, and saw his mother's pain of necessity of information.

He sighed and said, "Maybe some other time."

"My dear lad, I've waited for three years to ask this," Eglantine said, "and I am afraid that I cannot wait any longer. If I will the missing necessary detail will start to consume me, and I will break myself trying not to think of it."

"Mother..." Pippin sighed. He knew it's no use. If Eglantine decided that, it will be that way. Mothers had this way of being to such things. It's as bad as dark magic, Pippin thought to himself.

"Please," her eyes begged.

So Pippin started going into more aspects of the Ringwraiths, the Mines of Moria, the days spent captive with uruk-hai. The cold sweeping feeling the Ringwraiths' presence brought; the dark damp halls, and eternal waiting to get out; the cruel tight bonds and the smell.

Eglantine's eyes were steady, full of concern, looking hard, not wanting him to stop. She was a little paler when it got to part where he and Merry had been captured.

Pippin had been talking for at least an hour. He was standing behind the chair, his hands on the border of the table, leaning on it. "And after we left Isengard..." his voice trailed off.

"Then what?" Eglantine spoke for the first time.

Pippin didn't speak.

"Peregrin? Pip?" she asked.

Pippin knuckles where white. He was shaking, his eyes staring ahead. "Don't make me," he said, barely making a sound.

"My dear- Are you sick?" Eglantine said uneasily, fear in her voice. She rubbed his arm carefully. "Do you feel bad?"

Pippin did not answer.

"Come, sit down," his mother said, pulling out another chair. She tried to move him, pushing him a little towards the seat.

Pippin did not budge. He did not react at all. His eyes had closed.

Eglantine was terrified – what was wrong with Pippin?

Then, Eglantine Banks, wife of the Thain, never saw, heard, or remembered ever again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

A/N: Will post next chappy as soon as possible. PLEASE REVIEW.


	2. Chapter 2

The whole Shire was buzzing. The corpse of Eglantine had been found by her husband and Thain, Paladin, and their son mysteriously disappeared. There were two possibilities; either Peregrin murdered his mother and fled, or someone else killed the hobbit-lady and kidnapped her son.

Both were true in one way or another.

Sauron was not ultimately destroyed – his spirit was thrown into the void, unable to return to Middle-Earth. As Pippin tried to bring up the memory of them meeting, Sauron felt it; being further away from the place where the hobbit was, it seemed even easier to concentrate. He seized him, froze him, and then took control over Peregrin Took. He corrupted him. He kidnapped his mind, captured it. Pippin didn't have any power over his body, hardly even his thoughts. He just tried, struggling uselessly, to escape Sauron's control, with no success. He could not think, speak to his thoughts, to plan an escape. He was nothing. He was a brief memory of his self. Sauron didn't loosen his grasp on him – it was actually steadily growing stronger and stronger, and Sauron almost felt like it was having his body back again. Only he still felt very far away. He did not see as clearly or hear as clearly.

Merry had been worried. The disappearance of his best friend and cousin shocked him. He still wasn't an adult. Pippin was a child.

Merry was barely thinking of being ashamed of Pippin if it was him who killed Eglantine, because Pippin wouldn't do that. How could he do that? Pippin loved his mother, loved his father, loved his sisters (even if sometimes he felt hatred towards them). And Pippin wouldn't kill anyone or anything in his right mind – unless it was an orc or some other enemy.

Merry visited Paladin, who seemed not wanting to speak. Eglantine's funeral was 5 days after the morning when Paladin found her dead. Merry had went, naturally, but he was grieving more for Pippin's disappearance.

Merry decided that he needs to know what Paladin found that morning. When he found enough clues, he would go looking for Pippin.

"Paladin, I need to know what you found that morning... I just..." he trailed off as he saw that Paladin was about to speak.

"I only found-" he gulped a little before saying his demised wife's name "Eglantine, a half-eaten scone and- and one of the chairs were overturned. There was a torn shirt on Peregrin's bedroom floor. And- and there are claw-like scratches on the door."

"Can I see the scratches?" Merry asked. It sounded like an important jigsaw piece to the puzzle.

"Later," Paladin said hastily before he went off. Merry knew talking about this whole thing made Paladin cry. No wonder. His wife dead and his son missing: utter chaos. Being the Thain with responsibilities on top of everything else! Poor hobbit!

Poor Pippin, Merry thought, clenching his teeth for some reason.

Merry went over to his mother. "I'm going home, will you leave Paladin a little note from me?" he asked, and after explaining it to her, he set off homewards with his pony.

Merry sat in his armchair for hours, a cup of tea in his hand, yet he had not taken a sip of it. He was staring into the fire. Claw scratches? Claw scratches? This was getting stranger. Why would there be claw-scratches?

-_FLASHBACK_-

_Pippin hadn't lost all control yet, though he felt him being more than half a monster now. He felt himself weak, terribly weak. He felt he could just rip out his soul. Rip out his soul. He gathered his strength and clung into his own chest with his hands, as if trying to tear out something. His shirt ripped. He lost control again._

_"Leave it," a cold, whispering voice said. Pippin could barely think. He stopped struggling to regain his domination over his body._

_He took off the shirt, threw it on the ground and put on another one that seemed to be lying about. Sauron made for the door. No. Pippin drew his strength once more. He grabbed at the door. He – was – not – going – to – leave! He dug into the wood with all his might, physical and mental. Sauron was pulling him back, however. Pippin's fingers scraped along the door. Sauron was in control again. He was forced to let go._

_Why are you so weak, Peregrin Took? was the last thing he thought, before he couldn't even think anymore._

-_END FLASHBACK_-

Merry had just no idea.


End file.
